FICO Tries to Lower the Decision Complexity Score

Bank Technology News | February, 2010

Managing card risk isn’t getting any easier, and FICO is trying to tap into issuer concerns over balancing consumer satisfaction and risk with a new version of FICO TRIAD that claims to make decisioning strategies easier.

FICO TRIAD Customer Manager version 8.5 features a “decision graph,” a strategy design and visualization tool that allows lenders to develop, analyze, fine tune and compare decisioning strategies for factors such as credit limits, APRs, promotional offers and collection treatment.

The flagship FICO TRIAD is currently used by financial institutions to manage two thirds of credit card accounts worldwide, analyzing customer and account risk. The new product is designed to migrate from version 8.3 or 8.4, or Decision Graph can be purchased by 8.1 users. FICO hopes it can reduce the size of most complex decision strategies by about 25 percent.

Brad Jolson, senior director of global risk solutions for the Fair Isaac Corporation, says the product’s designed to accommodate more complex risk decisioning environment that’s emerged from crisis, including increased stress on regulatory oversight, credit risk, the absorption of assets following acquisitions.

“We have organizations that have ‘decision trees’ that have become very long. And there’s organizations that have merged and decision strategy is tough to map,” he says. “The new interface allows for a reduction in the complexity of strategy, allowing institutions to make decisions easier, as well as easing the explanation of strategies to senior management and regulators.”